Sunday, August 16, 2009

Oregon's State Parks and Recreation Department, Salem's cosmic gurus of Night Sky 45 and the volunteer group, Friends of Silver Falls conducted a mini (9PM-12AM) crash course in astronomy last night. We all had a great time learning the star gazing basics, looking through different types of telescopes and feeding on cookies and hot cocoa. The biggest treats of the night...seeing a shooting star and dancing with the free glow in the dark bracelets.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Each year The City of Silverton pays tribute to the successes of their hometown hero, Homer Davenport (1867-1912). Homer was a highly influential satirical cartoonist, credited with drawing Teddy Roosevelt into his second presidential term. At that time, he was the highest paid political cartoonist. One of Homer's lesser known contributions to the US was his introduction of an exclusive breed of Arabian horses, Davenport Arabians, with lineage direct from the (Syro-)Arabian Desert. Pictured above is one such horse. Unfortunately, Homer Davenport died long before his dream of bringing these horses to Oregon was realized. Today, there exists a group of 'preservation breeders' in the Willamette Valley that continue to keep the bloodlines pure and thriving.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

"Elephant garlic is as close as you can get to garlic without being truly garlic. It's actually related to the onion family," the vendors assured me. "It's taste is milder and sweeter," they said. Make no mistake, after the first bite of garlic ice cream, elephant garlic is just as smelly and pungent as the 'real Mccoy'. And just as I suspected, the ice cream tasted...interesting. We also tried the garlic trifecta - Garlic chicken with garlic mashed potatoes and garlic green beans. Yum! I was in garlic heaven. I could have used a stick of gum or two afterwards. A booth of mints and mouthwash would profit at function like this. I've been to the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California and I have to say that that the little burg of North Plains, OR does just as good a job representing the garden leek known as elephant garlic.